Screw THE A-TEAM; they’re just a bunch of babies. No one ever dies and none of their bullets ever hit anyone. This column is all about real team action – mindless stereotypes in over-the-top situations. Put aside JANE EYRE and settle in for an adrenaline thrill ride.

THE CULT CRUSHERS by Carl H. Yaeger – Yeah, you read the cover correctly: “Soldier of Fortune Magazine Presents.” Trust me, this 1987 book reads like some fever dream with some serious issues – a jumbled mess, to put it bluntly. It has no idea of what it’s trying to do or say.

The basics are that Sen. Courtney Davenport and Rev. Joe Rockland want to erase a plight on America: cults. They believe the only way to do this is to hire mercenaries to wipe out the leaders. If the book stuck to this, it would have been fine, but there are more plots in it than SHORT CUTS andTHE GODFATHER put together.

The main cult they’re trying to destroy is a group of neo-Nazis in Paraguay who also happen to count these men’s daughters among their members. The group’s main goal – besides building things to resemble swastikas – is to breed a pure-white Aryan race, using the women as breeding stock. Lovely. These mercenary types they hire fly all over the country disposing of said cult leaders and no one cares. I mean, they are traveling with guns on planes! Oh, the good ol’ days…

Countless nondescript characters enter and then are never heard from again, or some only in the last chapter during the final raid on the compound. The book is peppered homophobia that would have you think San Francisco is one giant bathhouse. And it’s just all over the map and left me wondering who the hell thought it was a good idea to publish it.

I mean, the appeal to people who read the magazine would have been bored within the first 100 pages, since it seems more like a right-wing religious crusade than an action yarn. I was expecting a mindless team mission, but what I got was more than 300 pages of crap with 20 pages of action at the end, with an epilogue that is so convoluted and delusional, you’ll kick yourself for even starting this mess.

ABLE TEAM #1: TOWER OF TERROR by Don Pendleton and Dick Stivers – This Mack Bolan spin-off series centers on the crime-fighting Able Team comprised of three members: Carl Lyons, Rosario Blancanales and Herman Schwartz – a mixed group of men from various backgrounds who once fought alongside Bolan himself.

But now they’re set up through the Stony Farm, a secret base out of which Mack and the crew work, and that’s a whole lot of backstory for such a simple plot. The boys are sent on a mission to combat Puerto Rican terrorists who have taken over a multinational company’s building in New York City.

The book is filled with gadgets and guns, plus plenty of violence to fill the pages. For a first book in the series, you would figure a good amount of background, but you pretty much jump in right away. It’s pretty much mindless fun and gun porn. There is a surprise which isn’t much of one, but for this type of book, what do you expect, Shakespeare?

What sets this 1982 book from others is the camaraderie of the three men, who are distinct characters of their own, each with his own specialty. This series is pretty easy to find, so if you have some time to kill, enjoy it with the Able Team. But what’s the deal with the cover looking like character actors from the ’70s? Is it me or does one of them look like Doug McClure?

SOBs #1: THE BARRABAS RUN by Jack Hild – Now this is more like it. Brock Samson, eat your heart out! Nil Barrabas was the last man out of Vietnam and now he is a mercenary. We meet him as he awaits execution for taking money from the wrong side of a revolution. But a U.S. senator has a better idea, and he needs Barrabas for a top-secret special operation.

Then the 1983 book goes about as Barrabas goes about recruiting his men for a new team of soldiers to overthrow an African government and then put its former leader back in power. To put it bluntly, they proudly fill every stereotype imaginable. It’s kind of hard keeping track of who’s who, but from what I understand, a good amount of them don’t make it to the next book.

RUN overflows with guns and violence. What do you expect, some detailed history of Third World policies? Reading this is so fast, you won’t even realize it, and it certainly won’t tax your mind. But it is also ghostwritten not by one person, but three, so that might explain some of the gaps. It’s much better than sitting through some god-awful “action” movie forced down our throats.

Next time: summertime, when the livin’s easy. –Bruce Grossman

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• THE EXECUTIONER #6: ASSAULT ON SOHO by Don Pendleton
• THE GUNS OF TERRA 10 by Don Pendleton